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Google Poaches CNET's Caroline McCarthy for 'Social' Work

Internet titan Google makes no apologies for hiring aggressively, as it reiterated last week on a conference call with Wall Street analysts. In fact, the Mountain View, California, company is going so far as to poach a prominent New York City technology reporter as part of its bid compete with upstart rivals like Facebook and […]

Internet titan Google makes no apologies for hiring aggressively, as it reiterated last week on a conference call with Wall Street analysts.

In fact, the Mountain View, California, company is going so far as to poach a prominent New York City technology reporter as part of its bid compete with upstart rivals like Facebook and Twitter.

Google has hired Caroline McCarthy, CNET's reporter for the Web 2.0 scene, to work in its New York City office, she announced today on her Tumblr blog.

McCarthy (pictured, center) has worked at CNET, which was purchased by CBS in 2008, for five years. For the last four years, she has written a blog called The Social, which explored "all facets of the Web's gregarious side, as well as the unique tech culture in her home city of New York."

McCarthy is well-known and well-liked in New York.

Google's gain is a loss for journalism, however, because McCarthy has chronicled the New York City tech scene better than anyone over the last five years. Those of us left to cover the East Coast's rivalry with Silicon Valley will miss her. (Disclosure: Caroline is a good friend of mine.)

Google confirmed McCarthy's hiring, but declined to comment further. McCarthy declined to comment beyond her blog posting.

McCarthy's full post follows:

Onward, to the Plex.

So I have some big news.

After five incredible years at CNET, I’m moving on. May 6 is my last day; ten days later, I will join Google’s New York office as a member of its fledgling Trends & Insights team. I’ll be doing a lot of writing, editing, and analysis as I work with Alli Mooney to humanize Google’s massive amounts of data for the marketplace.

The past few years have been a wild ride. Throughout my time here I’ve written everything from film reviews to Facebook gossip, filed stories from London to L.A. (as well as occasional quirky datelines like “Bermuda Triangle” and “37,000 feet above the Midwest”), anchored videos from opening night of “Snakes on a Plane” and the line to obtain the final “Harry Potter” book, and appeared on the likes of “The Today Show” and “Countdown with Keith Olbermann.” Let’s just say I didn’t really see any of this coming.

I’m very sad to be leaving a newsroom of friends, mentors, and top-notch colleagues at CNET, which is truly a hub of great journalism in the frenzied arena of tech reporting. I highly encourage you to stay attuned to everything CNET’s up to. We’ve had a flurry of internal e-mails in the past few days about promotions and new talent, which I continue to be very psyched about.

I’d like to send out a big thank-you to everyone I’ve met along the way. When I started at CNET I was 21, grossly underqualified, and not sure how long I’d last at this “journalism” thing. In my time covering Facebook, Google, Twitter, and countless start-ups, I’ve learned so much from so many people and am incredibly grateful to you all. Though I’m a bit wistful about checking out of the fourth estate (at least for now), I hope that we can stay in touch as I move into a whole new side of the business.

PS: And for those of you who care, after my last day at CNET I’m going to head off to the Northern California wilderness for a few days and then return just in time for the New York edition of the Ragnar Relay (a race which, last year, pretty much changed the course of my life). I’ll be on a team called the Lactic Acid Trippers. Watch for the kids in tie-dye.

Photo courtesy Caroline McCarthy

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